LEGO's New Saturn V Rocket Set Is A Meter-Tall Masterpiece

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LEGO has just announced the release date, price, and specs for its NASA Apollo Saturn V rocket, and it is clearly one small set for LEGO, but one giant leap for LEGO-kind. No, wait... the set's actually not small at all. This rocket could never fit in your pocket because it's actually a meter tall. And yes, we're very happy to see it.

LEGO teased images of the Saturn V rocket set, which commemorates the real-life rocket that "to date... remains the only launch vehicle to launch missions to carry humans beyond low Earth orbit," a few weeks back, but now it has an official release date of June 1 of this year, as well as a recommended retail price of $120 (technically $119.99...). According to LEGO's press release for the set, which comes via Gizmodo, the Saturn V rocket is "the tallest LEGO Ideas set [ever], as well as the one containing [the] most elements." In fact, the set has exactly 1969 elements (pieces), which is a brilliant way to mark the year that the behemoth carried the first humans to the Moon on the Apollo 11 spaceflight.

The set — which is available for closer inspection in the image gallery below — was created by Felix Stiessen and Valérie Roche, who worked remotely to design and build the prototype that was submitted to LEGO Ideas. After garnering the requisite 10,000 votes, LEGO developed the set in house in order "to ensure it lived up to LEGO quality standards," although the original set and what's being officially released look very similar.

It seems that all the key elements of the original idea are present in this official set, including the ability to dismantle the rocket into its three constituent stages, the Eagle Lunar Lander and Orbiter, and two minifigure astronauts—which in this case are microfigures—for playing out the Moon landing. Plus the set will come with "a booklet about the manned Apollo missions and the fan designers."

For reference, here is a picture of the original, real-life Saturn V rocket, which was 363 feet tall, and weighed 6,540,000 pounds. It also launched 13 times and never once lost crew or payload.

What do you think about this LEGO Saturn V rocket? Is this one small set for you, or a giant leap in your collection? Let us know in the comments below!